Veils

When I was a girl growing up in eastern NC, there was one family from Portugal at our parish.  I remember them because the wife and her mother wore veils.  Beautiful, ornate, lacy veils.  Even their daughter would wear a tiny chapel cap or a little white mantilla.

I was always mystified by these veils--I'd seen people wear them to funerals, but in those days (the 70s), most women had laid their veils aside.

When we returned to the Church in 2004, I cautiously donned some modest veils after the example of a good friend who attended a Tridentine Mass parish.  The women there had veils of all colors, sizes and shapes, and they wore them so naturally!  No one even thought about whether their veils were disruptive or   attention-getting.  In my own parish, a few women covered their hair, so it wasn't so uncomfortable.  I got used to veiling my hair and even got to the point where I didn't notice that I was wearing it.  I didn't feel like I was calling attention to myself like some weird, pierced adolescent.

I haven't been wearing my veils recently because we moved, and we're still settling into our parish.  I know:  I shouldn't be self-conscious about a custom that I think is beautiful.  Our Blessed Mother is my example in all things, and surely she would be pleased if I recognized my place in the order God has instituted.  I embrace obedience, humility and modest:  why not wear an outward sign of those virtues I'm trying to emulate?

My husband has been urging me to wear my veils again, and I saw this great post to encourage me.  This Holy Week I pulled them out.  I've only put on my chapel cap, but I'm thinking I might try to knit something. I have a yarn that's like thread and my hair color, and it'll probably cling better to my super-straight hair than the veils I have now.

I only wish more of us would embrace this tradition again.